The Fall anime schedule has started off with some truly excellent new shows but in this segment we look back at some of the top anime series released this past Summer, giving our thoughts as we review them. As always with our reviews we look and consider the most important factors that make up a good anime in our eyes, the animation, the story and characters, before giving our final thoughts. After we’ve looked at all these factors and after our final thoughts we score the anime based on a 5 star rating system.
Our third choice for this segment is yet another Crunchyroll original, as we look at Rent-a-Girlfriend which is based on Manga written by Reiji Miyajima and published by Kodansha. Crunchyroll partnered with TMS Entertainment to bring this anime to life. TMS have also worked on anime such as Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, Bakugan Cardfight Vanguard and many others including some computer games. In charge of the directing the series was Kazuomi Koga, whilst Mitsutaka Hirota was charged with adapting and re-writing the series for anime and Kanna Hirayama worked on the character designs.
Story
When Kazuya Kinoshita is dumped by his first college girlfriend he is heartbroken, feeling down on himself he finds an ad for a rent-a-girlfriend service and decides to rent himself a girlfriend. His date goes well and believing she had felt it more than service but when he reads others review he realises it was just her job, renting one more time to complain about being led on the pair accidently run in to his grandmother. With his grandmother now believing he has steady girlfriend he must continue to rent her to keep up the charade, when they start to have feelings for one another is where the trouble really begins. You do have to look past the fact that this is ridiculous male fantasy, of man being able to get a rent-a-girlfirend to develop feeling for her, there are some genuine sweet moments and situational comedy that comes from the plot that is genuinely funny.
Animation
I really like the animation for this series it very colourful and they’ve done a really great job of emoting the awkwardness of some of characters and they really capture the geekyness of the main protagonist and friends. The character designs really stand out as being original when it comes to male characters however the girls although not a copy and paste job I didn’t feel they stood out when compared to other slice of life anime girls, they would be difficult to pick out of line up. That said all the locations have been done to incredible detail and many of the scenes are always busy and very realistic whilst still making the main cast stand out.
Characters
The lead protagonist is very relatable to many shy and geeky men and men that may not have always had the best luck with women, he does come off as nice person who just lacks confidence. The main female supporting character helps to bring the main protagonist out of his shell allowing him to grow in confidence, the other supporting female characters really just help to add plenty of awkward situations that allow for some great comedy. You have also have the male supporting cast that should remind every male out there of their own group of friends, from the confident one, the one you got to for advice and the one you relate to most in there, they again add to a lot of the comedy.
Final Thoughts
This was a fun and enjoyable series, a really fun comedy that will have you laughing more than you expect. This series really surprised me and was one of my favourite anime released this summer. It does a great job of creating some excellently awkward situations and drives the humour out of it, I found that the characters were very realistic and most of all relatable. You will find your self both cringing and laughing throughout each episode and before you know you’ll have developed empathy for all the characters, I am sure everyone will have different favourite and opinion of who the protagonist should be with. As a crunchyroll original the series is obviously available on Crunchyroll, I promise our next review will not be a Crunchyroll original.
3.5 stars out of 5
As always I hope you enjoy the anime and don’t forget to check out our next summer anime review.